MADRID, Spain — Many of the world’s most legendary luxury brands strike a delicate balance between a strong heritage and a link to contemporary culture and society. In the lucrative market for leather goods, LVMH-owned Loewe, Spain’s answer to Hermès, has a long history of beautiful craftsmanship and a strong link to the Spanish royal family. But despite this rich heritage, Loewe has for many years remained a sleeping beauty,

LOS ANGELES, United States — While preparing for our FASHION PIONEERS interview with Natalie Massenet over the summer, I had the chance to spend quite a bit of time at the stylish new Net-a-Porter offices. Apart from the funky furniture, bright airy atmosphere and technology, the other highlight of camping out at Net-a-Porter is to see what employees at the most powerful fashion e-tailer are wearing. Without a doubt, the most

LONDON, United Kingdom — Nineteen months ago at the time of its launch, The Outnet was better known as Net-a-Porter’s cheap and cheerful younger sister. Now, it seems, the discount fashion retailer is all grown up, and getting an extreme makeover. Each month, The Outnet receives over one million unique visitors, less than ten percent of which overlap with the existing Net-a-Porter customer base. The United States, where The

MOUNTAIN VIEW, United States — As the digital revolution continues to exert a powerful democratising force on the closed hierarchy of the traditional fashion system, perhaps no platform has put more power in the hands of the people than Polyvore, a social shopping site. Polyvore gives consumers the tools to mix and match their favourite fashion items, creating “sets” for others to see and shop. In this way, everyone truly is an

In our latest CEO Talk, Robert Duffy, longtime business partner of Marc Jacobs, speaks to BoF about the power of Twitter. NEW YORK, United States — When Robert Duffy posted his first-ever Tweet on 30 January, saying “Welcome Tweeties,” he had no idea what he was getting into. What happened in the weeks that followed is an excellent lesson for fashion executives everywhere: the best way to understand social media is to

Today, BoF brings you an exclusive interview with a key adviser to the private family trust which, as announced today, made an investment in Lanvin, one of the hottest fashion brands in the world. PARIS, France — Over the past few years, under the creative stewardship of industry darling Alber Elbaz, Lanvin has risen to heights that most fashion brands can only dream of, with nearly unanimous positive reviews from buyers and

LONDON, United Kingdom — In 1893, at the age of 21, Alfred Dunhill inherited his father’s saddlery business in London and slowly but surely transformed it into a global business spanning several categories including timepieces, automobile accessories and clothing. In this way, it was the first global luxury men’s brand, paving the way for brands like Ermengildo Zegna, Dior Homme and Tom Ford to follow in its footsteps

LONDON, United Kingdom — Long before he was appointed Chairman of The British Fashion Council, Harold Tillman had already shown a commitment for supporting British Fashion, and young designers in particular. He famously gave Paul Smith his first job. And, in my first meeting with him back in 2006, Mr. Tillman and I vigorously debated and discussed the common challenges faced by the city’s designers and what could possibly be

LONDON, United Kingdom — Over the last decade, the internet and the mp3 have revolutionised the way people access and consume music, fundamentally threatening the system of controlled distribution that traditional record companies had built. Now a similar digital tidal wave is giving consumers unprecedented access to the once closed, “insider” world of fashion. The rapid pace of chance is causing disruption across the

MILAN, Italy — Federico Marchetti is one of fashion’s online pioneers. In 2000, when Marchetti established Yoox.com, online fashion retail was still in its infancy. in 2008, the Yoox Group, which includes the original YOOX site, as well as white-label sites for 18 fashion brands, including Emporio Armani, Marni and Pucci, and thecorner.com, shipped more than 1.7 million products to over 53 countries around the world, with

LONDON, United Kingdom — Everyone now acknowledges the importance of online retail in fashion. But how does a small fashion boutique, with limited resources break into the e-commerce game? The costs of building and maintaining a top-quality site can be prohibitive, not to mention the operational challenge of managing deliveries and returns. What’s more, with everyone piling in to the fashion e-commerce game, there is so much

VANCOUVER, Canada — Vancouver may be far away from the traditional centres of the fashion world, but in recent years this laid-back Canadian city has produced two fashion success stories that are taking the North American market by storm. The first, of course, is Lululemon. The second is Aritzia, a vertically-integrated fashion chain targeted at 15-30 year old women with a penchant for style and the disposable income to buy it. The

LONDON, United Kingdom — The Business of Fashion can exclusively reveal that my-wardrobe.com, the London-based fashion e-tailer positioned at a mid-level pricepoint between Net-a-Porter.com on the high-end and Asos.com on the low-end, has just closed its second round of investment. My-wardrobe continues to grow at a rapid pace, having achieved an extremely healthy 169 percent jump in sales in its third year, growing from £1.56m in